WOODY: When Virginia meets Tech, only the strong survive

BLACKSBURG -- From the opening moment of the game – check that, for some even before the game began – until the final second ticked away, they gave their full effort.

They ran. They jumped. They bounced. They flew high into the air, challenging the laws of gravity.

When it was over, they had expended every bit of energy and exhaustion was all they could feel.

And that was just the Virginia Tech cheerleaders and dance team.

Imagine how the players felt.

The Virginia Tech Hokies and University of Virginia Cavaliers engaged in a rugged, chest-to-chest, all-out battle of bitter in-state rivals Tuesday night in Cassel Coliseum.

When it was over, both of Virginia’s point guards, Jontel Evans and Sammy Zeglinski, had fouled out. It was the first time in his three years of college basketball Evans had fouled out.

When Zeglinksi left 30 seconds later – “I was angry,” he said. “I don’t usually foul out.” – the ballhandling duties, in a tight game with 1:32 left, fell on freshmen Malcolm Brogdon and Paul Jesperson, with help from sophomore Joe Harris and senior Mike Scott.

When it was over, the Cavaliers had reason to celebrate their 61-59 victory. The Hokies only could shake their heads over another frustrating loss.

When it was over, it was Jesperson’s follow shot with 43 seconds left that provided the Cavaliers with their margin of victory.

Jesperson is proof that a player never should be counted out. The 6-foot-6, 197-pound freshman spent the first semester thinking this would be a redshirt season.

But injuries and player departures between semesters led Jesperson to cast aside his redshirt for a game jersey.

And now, he has a red-letter date for his freshman year.

Jesperson’s basket came after Scott, the Cavaliers’ senior forward and leading scorer, made a power move to the basket that was bolder than it was wise.

The ball came off the rim and into Jesperson’s hands with 43 seconds left in the game. The freshman never hesitated with his next move.

“I just tried to attack the glass,” Jesperson said. “I got a fortunate bounce. I just went in and laid it up. It was just instinct. I never thought about pulling it down and bringing it out.”

This is how an Atlantic Coast Conference game is supposed to be played. This was not one of those fall-behind-by 20 and then shoot 3-pointers as if we’re on the playground games.

This was a game in which two teams battled for every point with neither able to put the other away.

This was a game that went down to the last possession. This was a game when the Hokies’ failed to get a final shot, turning the ball over with 1.9 seconds left, ending their night in frustration equal to the exhilaration felt by the Cavaliers.

This was a game the Cavaliers needed to, almost had to, win. They want to be in the NCAA tournament, and as silly as it might sound to say an ACC team with 20 victories has no guarantees of an NCAA bid, stranger things have happened.

The Cavaliers, now 21-6 overall and 8-5 in the ACC, feel much better about their position. They have sole possession of fourth place, courtesy of losses by N.C. State and Miami Tuesday night.

“We’re fighting for the post-season, and we need every win we can get,” Zeglinski said. “It feels great to come out of here with a win.”

Zeglinski also should feel pretty good about something else. He had been mired so deeply in a shooting slump he practically needed to wear a miner’s helmet equipped with a light to see the basket. Tuesday night, he found his stroke, dropping in three 3-pointers in the second half when the Cavaliers needed them most.

“That feels good,” he said. “But it just feels good to get defensive stops and come out of here with a win.”

But when he went to the bench with 1:32 left in the game, just 30 seconds after Evans had drawn his fifth foul, the immediate future looked grim for the Cavaliers.

Brogdon had been out most of the second half with a foot injury.

“It’s a really bad, throbbing pain,” Brogdon said. “It hurts when I step on it or push off on it.”

Yet he played through the pain in the final 1:32, even coming up with a steal with 1.9 seconds left to deny the Hokies a chance to tie the game.

The Hokies played their third straight solid game, but all they have to show for it is one victory.

 “We had that one stretch (in the second half) where, quite honestly, we had too many empty possessions,” Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. “We lost our focus a couple of possession on defensively. The first three in the second half by Sammy kind of game him some confidence.”

Virginia Tech played an almost perfect first half, yet led by just three at intermission.

Then, the Cavaliers were in danger of letting the Hokies seize and hold the momentum six minutes into the second half.

But the Cavaliers held on.

And late in the game, when ballhandling was a question and stopping Hokies’ guard Erick Green was an even bigger question, the Cavaliers persevered.

When it was over, they proved winning sometimes is as much a matter of surviving as it is of excelling.

Twitter: @World_of_Woody

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